Let fear become respect

At the beginning it was only a thought. Then it became a dream. What if? Could we just leave for a whole year? Leave everything behind? Just go and discover the world on our bicycles?

Then, talking about it and discussing the idea the first doubts sneak in: what will it be like to leave behind our jobs, families, friends, cat etc.? Are we physically and mentally strong enough for such a long journey? Isn't it crazy to give up our life that we like so much here?

So, then we put the idea off to some time in the future. But it never really disappeared. It was there all the time in some corner of our brains. And occasionally it would pop up: when reading books about bike tours, when we were out for a ride on the weekends, when we were traveling.. how would it be like to see all these places from our bikes, instead of just rushing by in a bus, train or car?

So then we realized that we need to try it, otherwise we would be dreaming about it for the rest of our lives. So we started making plans: when and how long we would leave, where we wanted to go, what to take and so on. And the beginning is easy: the most important thing to take: the bike; how long: a year would be nice; where do we want to go: direction east. So far so good.

Then it becomes more complicated: the more we read about gear, about the route, about the countries that we wanted to visit, the more worried we got. If we don't invest in the best, state-of the-art and thus also most expensive bike, will it break down on the way? Will we be able to find the parts that we need to fix it? What if we choose the wrong health insurance and something happens to us? What if we don't get all the right vaccinations? Is it safe to visit countries like Tajikistan? And the more people we talked to, the more different answers to all our questions we got.

This is when we realized that all the planning is centered around safety and avoiding problems. Which I think is important and necessary, and hopefully will make our journey more enjoyable, because we don't need to worry about all those things once we're on our way, but still sometimes I feel we need to take a step back and look at it from a distance and put things in the right relations again.

And it was right at that moment when I watched a documentary on TV, about some guys rafting down the Mississippi. Asked whether he wasn't afraid of the river, one of the guys answered with a sentence, which I chose to be my motto for the trip:

Don't let fear become paranoia, let fear become respect!